Sherlock the Idiot
by gopadfoot
Summary: Kidlock! Mycroft thinks that Sherlock is an idiot. Sherlock thinks the same. What changes?


A/N: I took a small break from my story, The Final Deduction, until inspiration hits again. This one-shot was inspired by the scene in TEH, where Mycroft says he thought Sherlock is an idiot until they met other kids. Also, in HLV, Sherlock sees Mycroft in his mind palace, telling him he is a stupid little boy. This is the background to those scenes. Please review, and check out my other fics while you're at it!

* * *

"Give that to me _right now,_ Sherlock! What in the world were you thinking!" Mycroft shouted at his little brother. "Hydrogen peroxide, potassium iodide, and _dish soap_? What the hell were you thinking! You could have burned yourself badly!"

"But... but... Eurus said it will make pretty colored bubbles, and I wanted to do the speriment myself, and... and..." Sherlock babbled, his lower lip quivering.

" _Ex_ periment, Sherlock. And what did I tell you about listening to Eurus? Always check the facts, preferably with someone smarter than yourself."

"But I wanna do it myself! It's _my_ chemistry set, and I can do whatever I want with it! You're a big, fat, meaniehead, Mikey, so bug off!"

"It's _Mycroft,_ and don't use such childish nonsense words. You need to try for something more clever if you really want to insult someone. Did you finish reading _Understanding_ _Basic Chemistry and Simple Experiments_? If you would have, you would never have attempted this experiment without the necessary precautions."

"But, some of the words are very hard, and I didn't understand everything. It's not my fault! Anyway, that's the point of a speriment, to see what's going to happen. It's very dull if the book tell you everything before!"

"You can't just decide to experiment if you have no clue what you're doing!" Mycroft yelled, beginning to lose patience.

"Can too!"

The older boy felt about to lose control, and reined himself in. This was his much younger and much duller brother he was dealing with, and there was no way he would let him get under his skin, he chided himself. He folded his arms across his chest and put on his most condescending sneer.

"You are a stupid little boy, and you should listen to those older and smarter than you, or else you will put yourself and everyone around you in danger," he drawled condescendingly.

"I'm _not_ a stupid little boy!" Sherlock protested, lifting his curly head in defiance.

"You are a _very_ stupid little boy," Mycroft sneered. "Mummy and Daddy will be very cross with you, because you are getting yourself into danger again."

In response, the little boy burst into tears, eyes and nose running and shoulders heaving. _Blast it_! Mycroft thought. He had forgotten how very _sentimental_ his little brother was. He had never meant to make him cry. Sherlock needed to learn his place, true, but for some reason seeing him cry made him feel very uncomfortable.

He got on his knees next to the younger boy and placed a hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry, Sherlock. I didn't mean that. I just don't want you to get hurt. Would you like me to read the chemistry book with you? I'll let you choose an experiment and we'll do it together, alright?"

Sherlock sniffed and then nodded his head. He then put a small hand into Mycroft's much larger one and started tugging his brother in the direction of his room. Mycroft gripped the tiny hand gently and marveled at how quickly he had regained Sherlock's trust. He thought he felt his heart give a little squeeze at the thought, but he couldn't figure out why. He had never been very good with sentiment.

* * *

Mycroft had slowly started to figure out why his brother was so different from his other siblings. Bluntly put, Sherlock was an _idiot._ Mycroft himself had easily read _Basic Chemistry_ when he was four, while Sherlock was still struggling with it at five. His vocabulary was limited, he still struggled with pronouncing some longer words, and his deduction skills were frankly appalling.

The evidence was piling up. One day, Sherlock told him that the maid must have been having a dalliance with the gardener based on all the times she had had mud on her shoes. With a little more sense, he would have seen that the mud was obviously from the stable, with the little strands of straw stuck in it. Besides, she talked with the gardener easily, but blushed whenever in the presence of the stable boy.

He began to point out all the details Sherlock always missed. At least he wasn't too dull to learn from his mistakes. Mycroft became Sherlock's tutor, training him in the art of deduction, as well as other branches of knowledge. He really cared about his brother, and regretted that the young boy would one day find out that he wasn't very smart. In a burst of brotherly compassion, he one day decided to never again tell Sherlock how dull he really was. He didn't want to shatter the little boy's sensitive heart. Besides, Sherlock was secretly his favorite sibling, although he would never admit to that out loud.

* * *

Sherlock wasn't as smart as Mycroft or Eurus, but not so dull as not to figure it out. He was aware that his little sister outstripped him by far in the intellectual department. She read graduate level books on science, mathematics, psychology and philosophy while he was still struggling with grade school level books. Eurus shone in every academic area, while Sherlock was decent at some, but hopeless at others. He found it hard to concentrate on the history and civics lessons Mycroft urged on him when he found it so boring. He was decent at sciences and math, but he saw the way Mycroft would discreetly shake his head in disappointment, and knew that he didn't measure up to expectations. _I must be an idiot,_ Sherlock concluded. _Sherlock the idiot, bringing shame to his family._

He decided to forge his own path, and created a fantasy world for himself, where he was powerful, respected, and even feared. The infamous pirate Yellowbeard would one day rule the world. That would show them all. They would all be on their knees in front of him, begging for their lives, while he would triumphantly wield his sword... but he would be merciful and spare their lives. Besides, he was sort of fond of his parents, and Eurus wasn't too bad, at times. Mycroft had his uses, and deep down he worshipped his big brother and wished to be as smart and strong as him.

* * *

When Sherlock was five-and-a-half, the Holmes parents decided to introduce him to other children his age. Sherlock was raised in semi-isolation on the manor, with hardly any contact with other children save for formal occasions. Mycroft attended school, but hardly had any social life. The children in his class were way beneath him in intellect and maturity, and though he would never say so out loud, he sometimes felt lonely. He had so hoped that his younger siblings would turn out to be the companions he always longed for. Unfortunately, the prospects were slim on that front.

Sherlock wasn't really slow, he knew, but was probably on par with most of the other children his age. Which made him an idiot, in Mycroft's opinion. Eurus was frighteningly clever, but somehow... wrong. Frankly, she scared him. She had the freaky ability to know things she never should have, and to manipulate others to dance to her tune. Sherlock, poor little idiot Sherlock, was particularly vulnerable to her machinations. He kept a close eye on both of them, but longed for a better relationship.

Now his parents were having _children_ over. They said something ridiculous about _making friends,_ and Mycroft was a bit happy but a bit jealous, too. Sherlock would definitely fit right in with the three other children, being that he was as ordinary as them. Mycroft shadowed the group as they attempted to play together.

At the end of the day, Mycroft's worldview had been turned upside down. _I can't believe what kind of idiots our parents invited over!_ Jimmy Dale was so proud that he knew the alphabet until 'R', and Bobby Langdon had never heard of Parliament before! None of them could read beyond the simplest three letter words, and none of them knew what chemistry meant! He was so shaken up that he hid in his room and brooded. If these were "regular" children, he must have misjudged Sherlock by far. Perhaps there was hope for his little brother. Perhaps.

Or perhaps not. Sherlock seemed to hit it off with the third little idiot, a boy named Victor Trevor. Before long, they were running around with toy swords and silly eye-patches and planning to take over the world (and torture Mycroft in the process). Mycroft was secretly glad to see his brother so happy, but also a little envious about the easy relationship Sherlock had with Victor. He hoped that Sherlock would stop with all the nonsense and that he could continue training his little brother to actually use his brain.

When he got his wish in the end, however, he never stopped wishing that he didn't.


End file.
